Safe Online Banking

If you are concerned on how to perform safe online banking, this article is written just for you. Following guidelines, will assist you in performing banking in safe and secure manner.

Step 1: Be Wise. Be mindful and treat with suspicion on receiving email(s) advising you to provide your financial information. It is highly unusual for a bank, to request your Social Insurance number, your password, PIN#, credit card number, or any other financial information.

Also, do not perform online banking using public computers. Always use your personal computer for online transactions.

Step 2: Beware of Online Fraudsters. Major threat to online banking is identity theft. Emails are sent by online criminals, advising user to click the link within the email. These emails appear as it has originated from a legitimate bank, and once the user clicks the link, they are taken to a fake website resembling the legitimate website, thus tricking user to enter their id, password, client number, credit card number etc… This technique of tricking users in order to gather and accumulate their personal information is called phishing.

Following are some tips that you can use to avoid fraudsters and detect fake web sites.

• Carefully verify the bank web site address that you received in your email. Compare the address with the one that you have stored either on your browser’s favorite or on your own memory. Verify it character by character may be the address is completely different or some characters are changed indicating the possibility of a fraudulent website.
• Right-clicking on a hyperlink and selecting “Properties” should tell you the link’s true destination – again if this is different than your bank address then it means its a phishing scam.
• Banks always use a secure connection. In order to know whether the web site use a secure connection follow the technique outlined in safe shopping guide; which is to look for a padlock symbol in the bottom right of the browser window, whereas the website address must begin with ‘https://’. Padlock symbol indicates that an encrypted (SSL) connection is used to communicate between internet banking client and the banking site, and also indicates that the banking site has a valid certificate.

  Online criminals often copy the image of a padlock on the web page itself, therefore online shoppers must look for a padlock that resides in the window frame of the browser itself. They should also click on the padlock to check that the seller is who they say they are, and that their certificate is current and registered to the right address.

Step 3. Secure your Computer. For safe online banking, take all the steps indicated in Computer Safety Guide. In short, install Anti-Virus, Anti Spyware, Firewall and keep update your computer operating system regularly.

Step 4. Keep tabs on your money. If you spot any unusual transactions in your statement, report them immediately to your bank.

All the above steps will help you to perform safe online banking, I hope you will utilize this guidelines to perform banking with peace of mind.

Related Resource:

To learn more on financial safety on the internet visit: Senior Computer Help - Financial Safety.

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